Art Rooney was the founding father.
Dan Rooney then took over.
Art Rooney II was groomed under Dan then handed the reigns.
Is Art Rooney II's son Dan now being groomed? That is his only son.
Is there any other Rooney's out there? Art 2 also has 3 daughters so is a female Rooney looming out there?

MeetJoeGreene

02-02-2011, 08:30 AM

Art Rooney was the founding father.
Dan Rooney then took over.
Art Rooney II was groomed under Dan then handed the reigns.
Is Art Rooney II's son Dan now being groomed? That is his only son.
Is there any other Rooney's out there? Art 2 also has 3 daughters so is a female Rooney looming out there?

hmm. Maybe I should marry one of his daughters and then the Steelers could be MINE!!!

Mister Pittsburgh

02-02-2011, 08:47 AM

Art Rooney was the founding father.
Dan Rooney then took over.
Art Rooney II was groomed under Dan then handed the reigns.
Is Art Rooney II's son Dan now being groomed? That is his only son.
Is there any other Rooney's out there? Art 2 also has 3 daughters so is a female Rooney looming out there?

hmm. Maybe I should marry one of his daughters and then the Steelers could be MINE!!!

Steelers could be MINE!!!

:lol: Did you wring your hands and belt out an evil laugh when you said this!!! If you pull that off, make me a highly paid scout.

ikestops85

02-02-2011, 01:19 PM

[quote="Mister Pittsburgh":33d04pyc]Art Rooney was the founding father.
Dan Rooney then took over.
Art Rooney II was groomed under Dan then handed the reigns.
Is Art Rooney II's son Dan now being groomed? That is his only son.
Is there any other Rooney's out there? Art 2 also has 3 daughters so is a female Rooney looming out there?

hmm. Maybe I should marry one of his daughters and then the Steelers could be MINE!!!

Steelers could be MINE!!!

:lol: Did you wring your hands and belt out an evil laugh when you said this!!! If you pull that off, make me a highly paid scout.[/quote:33d04pyc]

Hell, make me the OC. I know I could do a better job than Arians. :stirpot :lol: :lol:

Djfan

02-02-2011, 01:20 PM

I'd just be happy to be a waterboy for the Steelers.

As a teacher, that would be a raise anyway.

NC Steeler Fan

02-02-2011, 02:42 PM

I want to be that Asian chick who is constantly on sidelines around the players.

That has got to be an erotic experience...milling around and among all those fine stallions. :shock:

Lucky b*tch! :lol:

Crash

02-02-2011, 03:17 PM

Dan Rooney Jr., Art II's brother, is the "next in line".

Right now he works as a scout.

fordfixer

02-02-2011, 08:14 PM

I want to be that Asian chick who is constantly on sidelines around the players.

That has got to be an erotic experience...milling around and among all those fine stallions. :shock:

Training leads to big break
By Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY
LATROBE, Pa. — Recently, 6-5 Lisa Leslie made the leap that produced the first dunk in a WNBA game.

Ariko Iso stands 5-4. She, too, had basketball aspirations until she tore a knee ligament as a 14-year-old player in her native Japan and began a long rehabilitation.

But this summer, Iso has made a leap of her own as a new assistant athletic trainer with the Pittsburgh Steelers — the first full-time, female athletic trainer in the history of the NFL.

The training room has evolved with the rest of the NFL. In the league's early decades, the stereotypical trainer was a cigar-chomping guy who taped ankles, tended the whirlpool and listened to players' worries and gripes.

Their modern counterparts prefer to be called athletic trainers — so as not to be confused with fitness trainers, personal trainers, etc. — and they typically have master's degrees and rooms full of the latest high-tech equipment.

But it has remained a male domain. Until now.

"I would like to do a good job. That way they can say, 'Oh, guess what happened? We hired a female, and she's good at this and that.' So I'm trying to do my best," says Iso, 31, who worked the past two summers with the Steelers as a part-time training intern.

Iso has a master's degree in her field. She worked the last six years at Portland (Ore.) State, where she rose from assistant to associate athletic trainer and worked with the football team and other sports.

Under a hot afternoon sun on the Steelers practice field, she displays another of her credentials: enthusiasm for her work.

As she pushes a water cart on wheels the length of the practice field, she isn't just hurrying. She's running full tilt, like a player sprinting for the end zone.

"You see her work ethic," says John Norwig, Pittsburgh's head athletic trainer.

"Ariko was hired because she's an outstanding athletic trainer and a good person, not because of her gender. She was the best candidate. I'm proud that she's the first female in the NFL, but really, she was the best athletic trainer for the job."

Taking pride in her work

According to the latest figures from the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA), 14,459 of its 30,207 members are women (47.9%). Julie Max, head athletic trainer at Cal State Fullerton, is the first female president of the NATA, which represents athletic trainers at all levels.

However, gender breakthroughs have been few in the ranks of male professional sports. According to NATA, there are two full-time female assistant trainers in the NBA, Michelle Leget of the Houston Rockets and Janet Panek of the Washington Wizards. There are none in the NHL or Major League Baseball.

But when Iso reports for work at 6:45 a.m. each day in the Steelers training room at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, she doesn't see herself as a woman in a man's world.

"I understand that it's still a male-dominated sport. But I see myself as a health care professional, and you go to see a male or female physician or nurse," she says. "I try to be professional. That way athletes see me not as a female athletic trainer, but just as an athletic trainer."

Pro Bowl linebacker Jason Gildon of the Steelers obviously sees her that way. While he's on his back stretching before practice, Iso provides assistance in helping him loosen his hamstrings. She leans her shoulder against the back of his upraised leg and pushes back.

"She's a very good trainer. She's very thorough. She takes a lot of pride in her work," Gildon says.

Gildon also notices how she's all over the practice field, making sure players are drinking during breaks and tending to their ailments.

"She really seems to enjoy it," Gildon says.

But she's also no-nonsense, according to Steelers rookie fullback Albert Tuipulotu, who played at Portland State while Iso was on the staff there.

"She pushes you when you're in the training room, like if you're hurt and you've got to go in there and rehab," Tuipulotu says.

"It's not like a day off where you're not practicing. She's pushing you and trying to help you be on the field as soon as possible. You'd better be on time with her. ... She isn't weak because she's a lady. I mean, she's tough. She's a professional lady."

At camp, the Steelers training room is located adjacent to the locker room, where the players shower and dress. How does Iso handle the matter of the locker room?

"If something like an emergency occurs, yes, I will walk into the locker room," she says.

"But there is male staff, so if they can do it, I won't necessarily rush into it."

Norwig, in his 12th season as Pittsburgh's head trainer, hired Iso this summer when a position opened up for a second full-time assistant.

"She has very good academic credentials. She has outstanding work experience. She's a good fit for us," Norwig says. "She's worked our last two camps, so that made it easy.

"I talked with my assistant (Ryan Grove), and we talked about this over and over. 'Are you worried about hiring a female?' Both he and I came to the conclusion that no, we're hiring the best athletic trainer that we know of now."

Iso's mother, Ayako, and her father, Mitsuru, live in Tokyo.

"They have watched some football, and I think they are very happy" about the Steelers job, Iso says. "But I'm not sure how much they know about it, like how big the NFL really is. It's a great opportunity."

Not just a man's world

Iso got interested in training as a career while rehabbing from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.

"I had to work with physical therapists, and that kind of made me think I'd like to work in the profession," she says.

She came to the USA to study, earning her undergraduate degree from Oregon State and her master's from San Jose (Calif.) State. At both schools, she worked with male and female athletes in multiple sports.

Now she's made the NFL. "It's very symbolic," the NATA's Max says. "It's a very positive breakthrough, and I'm thrilled about the decision."

So is Kelly Liermann, 22, a female training intern in the Steelers camp. Liermann is a student at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she's nearing completion on undergraduate and master's degrees in athletic training. Liermann got interested in the profession when she hurt her back as a high school cross country runner in suburban Pittsburgh and began rehab work at Duquesne's sports medicine clinic.

With the Steelers, she's getting experience in everything from pre-practice taping to treatment methods like electrical stimulation and ultrasound.

"Ariko being hired by the Steelers is a huge step for women in athletic training," Liermann says. "A lot of football mentality is 'It's a man's sport, it's a man's world.' A lot of people don't realize that women can do things just as well as men in the health profession."

As she pursued her college studies and job opportunities, Iso says she didn't set a specific goal of becoming an NFL athletic trainer.

"I like my profession, and I think I would enjoy it at any level," she says. "Of course, the higher level you go, the competition is higher and you might enjoy it more. I was just looking for a perfect fit and great people to work with."

papillon

02-02-2011, 11:32 PM

I want to be that Asian chick who is constantly on sidelines around the players.

That has got to be an erotic experience...milling around and among all those fine stallions. :shock:

Lucky b*tch! :lol:

I vote NC Steeler Fan as assistant to the assistant trainer, so that, she can mill around the stable and check out (or examine :shock: ) all those fine stallions. :lol:

Pappy

eniparadoxgma

02-03-2011, 01:02 AM

the first full-time, female athletic trainer in the history of the NFL.

Obviously she was hired because of her gender as another PR move by the Steelers.

DALLAS -- The symbol of success for the Pittsburgh Steelers is the cafeteria in their headquarters. One visit and you can understand why the team calls itself a family.

Go there on any weekday during the season at lunchtime and look around: players and coaches here; employees at all levels there; media members relaxing and the bosses sitting with any or all of them at any given time -- Dan Rooney until he became ambassador to Ireland and now his son Art, who's been running the team for a while now.

"That's how Pittsburgh is, just regular people,'' both Rooneys tell you when you ask them about the democratic nature of their operation. When you ask them why, given the Steelers' success, why other teams don't do it, they shrug.

"Ask the other teams,'' Art Rooney said this week.

"I think the organization is what it is for a lot of reasons,'' safety Ryan Clark said as the Steelers prepared for a chance to extend their record of six Super Bowl victories with one more against another historic franchise, the Green Bay Packers.

"It's about the city. It's about the organization and about the way it is run, like a family."
- Ryan Clark "It's about the city. It's about the organization and about the way it is run, like a family. To see a man like Mr. Rooney, who I think is probably the most respected owner in football right now, to see him in the lunch room or go to the game and he knows kids names and hugs your wife. I think just the family aspect of the whole thing, it makes you not want to leave. They treat people fairly. It is not a situation where they go out and make the big offseason move and you see the big No. 1 free agent coming to Pittsburgh. What you do see is guys staying. You do see them taking care of home first and I think that is a big reason that guys want to be around this organization."

It's always been that way off the field, from 1933, when the Dan Rooney's father, the first Art Rooney -- aka "The Chief'' -- founded the team.

But not necessarily on it. The Steelers didn't play their first postseason game until 1972 and in those first 30 seasons were over .500 only six times. During World War II, they twice merged with other teams -- as the "Steagles,'' the Steelers and Eagles, in 1943, and as Card-Pit, a lusty 0-10 in 1944 in tandem with the Chicago Cardinals.

It started to change in the late 1960s, just before the 1970 AFL-NFL merger in which the Steelers were one of three NFL teams -- with the Browns and Colts -- to move to the AFC in order to balance the two conferences at 13 teams each. The major move was the Chief's decision to put his son Dan, then in his mid-30s, in charge of the team, including the football operation.

Dan was more than just the son of the owner.

He had been a second-team all-city quarterback in Pittsburgh in 1949, beaten out by a young man named John Unitas, two young high school quarterbacks who ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Rooney, of course, didn't make the Hall for his play. But part of the reason he was inducted in 2000 was his work in building the team that won four Super Bowls in six seasons during the 1970.

Until the mid 1960s, Art Rooney Sr. ran the operation. Then he turned it over to Dan.

One of Dan's first moves, almost 40 years before the establishment of the "Rooney Rule'' to encourage the hiring of minority coaches, was promoting Bill Nunn, one of the few African-American scouts in those years, into a key position in the front office. Nunn's contacts at small and historically black colleges in the South helped the Steelers find a number of players who were key players on those "Steel Curtain'' title teams: John Stallworth, Mel Blount, Ernie Holmes, L.C. Greenwood and Dwight White among others.

In 1969, Rooney hired Chuck Noll as coach. The Steelers went 1-13 in Noll's first season and didn't have a winning season until 1972, when they made the playoffs for the first time, beat the Raiders on the "Immaculate Reception'' by Franco Harris before losing the AFC championship game, 21-17, to unbeaten Miami.

But the momentum was established. Rooney, Noll and Nunn, among others, had the best draft in history in 1974, the year the Steelers won their first Super Bowl, when they drafted four future Hall of Famers in the first five rounds: Lynn Swann in the first; Jack Lambert in the second; Stallworth in the fourth and Mike Webster in the fifth.

The good drafting continued, although not at that level obviously. Just as important was the continuity -- Noll retired after the 1991 season; Bill Cowher stepped down before the 2007 season and Mike Tomlin is in his fourth year and his second Super Bowl.

Three coaches in 42 seasons.

Compare that with the team the Steelers face Sunday, the Packers. Vince Lombardi stepped down two years before Noll took his job and Mike McCarthy is the ninth coach since then with the longest tenure belonging to Mike Holmgren -- seven seasons from 1992-98 in which he won one Super Bowl and lost another.

The front office has been nearly as stable -- Kevin Colbert has run the personnel operation for the past 11 years and is one of the most respected executives in the NFL.

The family atmosphere means the Steelers don't lose many free agents -- a number of stars have taken less money to stay. And they don't spend big money to bring in any -- Clark is an example of a low-priced one, brought in when Washington decided to pay $20 million up front to replace him with the far less skilled Adam Archuleta, a bigger "name.''

But when a key player turns out to be other than a good citizen, he is traded or allowed to walk -- Santonio Holmes is in the first category and Plaxico Burress in the second. And in each case, Colbert and his staff find youngsters like Mike Wallace or Emmanuel Sanders or Antonio Brown to replace them.

"I think the key, really, is surrounding yourself with the right people,'' Art Rooney says. "you have to have the right people to get the job done, and we've been fortunate over the years to have a lot of great players and great coaches and people like Kevin Colbert handling the draft. It's a lot of pieces that make it work, but certainly having the right people in the right spots is the key."

For the last 40 years it's won more championships for Pittsburgh than any NFL team.